Gallon Environment Letter – the daily edition – a policy letter from the Canadian Institute for Business and the Environment

Car sharing could be a good GHG emission reduction strategy for business

Business consulting firm AlixPartners has recently announced the results of a car sharing study which finds that, in the United States, approximately 500,000 vehicle purchases have been avoided due to car sharing. The study suggests that as car sharing grows in popularity, it could account for approximately 1.2 million more automobile purchases avoided through 2020. The 10 key car-sharing markets covered in the AlixPartners survey, where car-sharing services have achieved a degree of scale, were Austin, Texas; Boston; Chicago; Miami; New York; Portland, Ore.; San Diego; San Francisco-Oakland; Seattle; and Washington, D.C. AlixPartners suggests that automobile manufacturers need to take the growth of car sharing into account in their business strategies.

As we have previously reported in Gallon Environment Letter, some large leading companies have already implemented programs to encourage car sharing among their employees. Companies located in city centres are more likely to encourage public transit use but for those located in suburban areas, where transit services offer less comprehensive coverage, car sharing can be an environmentally and economically appropriate strategy. Among the elements of a company-sponsored program:

priority parking for car pooled vehicles

company implementation of an electronic car pooling bulletin board system